Annual event cleans Craig

When arriving at Craig City Park on Sunday afternoon, a woman discarding appliances saw the crew draining refrigerators of Freon and said, "That's a smart idea."

"That stuff isn't cheap," she said.

Today, thanks to the annual Craig Clean-up, the city is a few hundred appliances and a couple of thousand tires short. The town dump is not.

City employees called this weekend's annual Craig Clean-up, sponsored by the city and Moffat County, "one of the busiest ever." Residents were allowed to dispose of old refrigerators, appliances and tires at City Park for free.

The final count of appliances dropped off this weekend was not available Sunday.

On average, city employees said, it costs $4 to dump old tires and between $35 and $85 to drain and dump an old refrigerator.

Inmates from the Moffat County Jail helped with the clean-up. Otis said their help was appreciated.

"We've worked them ragged," she said.

Victor Updike and Lee Fagan, two employees at The Memorial Hospital, made a deal with the city to drain the unwanted refrigerators. The men said they were donating their proceeds to the Boys & Girls Club of Craig.

The clean-up marks the end of the grace period for residents in violation of stiffer nuisance code policies. The Craig City Council recently approved the tougher codes as a way to beautify Craig and protect public health.

Otis said she didn't think many citations would be issued for nuisance violations after the clean-up.

"A lot of people have cleaned up their areas," Otis said. "There are a few zones that still need to be picked up, but I don't know that I'm going to issue a lot of citations right now."

Joshua Roberts can be reached at 824-7031, ext. 210, or jroberts@craigdailypress.com.